


never not chasing a million things i want

by harukatenoh



Series: we're on each other's team [3]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, New Year's Eve, New Year's Resolutions, Team Bonding, badly adjusted kids, ofc titans style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 13:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21969928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harukatenoh/pseuds/harukatenoh
Summary: The new Titans make some New Year's resolutions, and reflect on the time that has come before.
Relationships: Damian Wayne & Iris West II, Lian Harper & Damian Wayne, Lian Harper & Damian Wayne & Iris West II, Lian Harper & Iris West II
Series: we're on each other's team [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567885
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	never not chasing a million things i want

**Author's Note:**

> back at it again at krispy kreme if krispy kreme is titans 2.0 fic that only me and my friend care about
> 
> title from tennis court by lorde

“My New Year’s resolution,” Lian says, clapping her hands together in front of her, “is to stop letting Damian fuck up our missions,”

The immediate response comes in something thrown in her direction; she dodges, and when it sails over the balcony, she sees the ice cube that Damian had weaponized. 

“What the  _ fuck,”  _ Damian scowls, wielding another ice cube. Irey is looking in despair at their jug of punch, that now contained two less ice cubes, and much more of Damian’s DNA then preferable. Lian laughs.

Damian throws the other ice cube, and she lets this one hit her. It does, square on her forehead. At least the kid’s got good aim.

“Fuck you,” Damian says. Lian snorts. She gets such a kick out of hearing Damian swear in that stupid posh accent. “My New Year’s resolution is to finally kick you off the team,”

“Don’t set yourself up for failure,” Lian snaps back, but she grins. She feels strangely relaxed, standing on the balcony of the Titans Tower. There have been fireworks going on and off for most of the night, and she’s almost completely stopped flinching at them. It’s good, she thinks. She doesn’t like to label anything as good or bad but this, this right now: this might be as good as it’s ever gotten.

Damian huffs, but he’s smiling too, or doing that weird thing he does when he wants to smile where he won’t meet anybody’s eyes and keeps staring up at the sky. Irey looks between them and rolls her eyes, placing the jug down on the makeshift table they’ve created out of two chairs and a random plank of wood.

“You two should make resolutions to get along more,” she says with a rueful sigh.

Damian makes a face. “Don’t set yourself up for failure,” he intones, picking up a piece of sushi from the snack tray.

“Imitation isn’t a good look, Damian,” Lian lectures as she leans over and, with a deft strike, steals the sushi from his chopsticks. She manages to pop it into her mouth just before Damian’s retaliation, which comes in the form of a pair of chopsticks jabbed into the back of her hand.

She realizes that might not have been the greatest move as she yelps, feeling the hard wood stab into her hand.

_ “Harper!” _ Damian screeches. “What the  _ fuck _ is your problem?”

Lian can’t answer, because she’s too busy blinking reflex tears out of her eyes and wondering how the fuck Damian managed to make takeaway chopsticks feel that painful.

“Fucking assassin trained brat,” she gasps out, because she’s still not quite used to being around people who are as skilled as her, and this fucking  _ smarts.  _ All of her… peers, or opponents, during her time with Jade had been far inferior, and when she had decided to be awful, all they could do was take it. 

_ Damian không phải là kẻ thù,  _ she reminds herself. Nobody here is. 

She guesses it may have been somewhat unnecessary to steal his food.

Damian, scowling at her, snaps back “Coming from you,  _ inferior _ assassin trained kleptomaniac,”

Irey, with deep disappointment, says “Damian, no attacking teammates with things that can actually hurt.”

“She took my food!” Damian protests immediately, pointing at Lian with his chopsticks again. She doesn’t flinch, but only because she grits her teeth and digs her heels in.  _ Tôi không sợ Damian. Không ai ở đây là kẻ thù. _

The rhythm of Vietnamese in her head centres her enough, until her vision has cleared completely. Damian and Irey are both watching her now, wariness in both of their gazes. It almost makes her laugh, and it almost makes her lash out. 

_ Grit your teeth,  _ she thinks.  _ Dig your heels in. _ She doesn’t laugh, and she doesn’t lash out. She looks past their masks, and sees the concern, the embarrassment, behind Damian’s gaze. She sees the pain and the love behind Irey’s.

She says “I’m fine,” and all three of them come off guard. This time, she does laugh. What a sight they are. Some kind of team.

“You aren’t bleeding,” Damian says stiffly, eyes on Lian’s hand and not her face. “But a bruise may form. Do you require an ice wrap?”

He’s so dumb, Lian thinks. He thinks that talking cold and pretentious will hide that he cares. 

_ He cares, _ her thoughts echo back at her.

Lian breathes out. It’s New Year’s eve. She’s done some shit in her life, like died and came back, and trained with assassins, and killed people, but the thing that surprises her the most every day is this. Is that she has found a team, and a home, among these fucking weirdos. Her hand hurts like hell. She breathes in.

“Are you going to throw it at me?” she asks, offering Damian a dry smile. Damian, the weirdo, blinks first, cataloguing her expression, reading her intentions.

Then, he smiles too. Equally dry, equally sincere. He replies “Maybe. If you do something that deserves karmic retribution in the next five minutes.”

Irey scoffs. “You are not the distributor of  _ karma,”  _ she says, because somebody needs to say it, and Lian certainly isn’t going to. She finds the thought too funny.

Damian huffs, looks like the snotty seventeen year old that he is, and says “Irrelevant.”

Lian throws her head back— _ để lộ cổ của mình để có thể tấn công _ —and laughs. Her hand has nearly stopped hurting now, or she’s finally pulled it together and started ignoring the pain. Either way. 

Despite everything, she’s still relaxed, still comfortable in her own skin and on her own terms. Damian gives her one last once over, gaze watery and uncertain like it is when he’s concerned, and then leaves for the kitchen. 

Irey shuffles closer to Lian on the balcony, and offers her a piece of sushi.

Irey says, “You didn’t have to take it,”

Lian nods, accepting the offering with delicate fingers, like she’s handling something precious. She is.

“I… I don’t really know what I was trying to do,” she lies. She does. She just doesn’t want to say it.

Irey rolls her eyes. “Okay, Lian. I’m just saying. You didn’t have to take it. You could’ve just asked,”

Lian smiles down at the piece of sushi, rolls it around in her fingers until there’s some stray pieces of rice stuck to them. She thinks she might be afraid, most of all, of the fact that she could’ve just asked. She doesn’t know what to do with something willingly given.

She eats the sushi, and Irey, closer to the snacks table, passes her another one. She eats that too.

When Damian comes back, he’s holding an ice wrap in one hand, and another platter of sushi in the other. He sets the platter down first, shuffling everything around on the precariously balanced plank until it all fits.

Then, he steps towards Lian, and offers her the ice wrap silently. She stares at it, and then stares at him.

Damian says “What? Do you require somebody to wrap it for you as well?”

Lian closes her eyes and takes the ice wrap, replying “Shut the fuck up, Damian.”

_ “You _ shut the fuck up,” Damian replies, but his tone is light.

Eyes still closed, Lian says, “Make your resolution to have better comebacks,”

“I will when you make  _ yours _ to have basic first aid skills,” Damian snarks amicably.

Irey claps her hands together and faces out to the city, glittering in the distance. She announces, “My New Year’s resolution is to  _ not _ die and come back to life like my two dear teammates have done, because I’m convinced it turns you into an asshole, and we don’t need three on this team.”

Lian’s eyes snap open. Irey still has her hands clasped together, raised up to the sky, eyes closed. 

_ “Iris,” _ Damian says, sounding deeply offended and also somewhat proud.

Lian says, because if she doesn’t say something she’s going to end up laughing hysterically, “Low blow, Irey,”

Irey, who always means what she says, who believes in herself and then drags everybody else up into believing as well, shrugs and beams at the both of them. “I’m just saying,” she says cheerfully.

She goes to pour herself a cup of punch, and Lian and Damian’s eyes meet over her head. Lian reads the emotions out of Damian’s gaze, and they match up with hers perfectly: disbelief, amusement, horror, and above all, a ridiculous amount of fondness for their teammate.

Damian turns to look at Irey again, a proper, genuine smile at his mouth, and says “It seems like there are three assholes on this team already,”

Irey chirps “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m an  _ angel,” _ and then all of them begin to hysterically laugh. Laughing so hard that she’s doubled over, the scrape of her laughter mixing in with her teammates’, Lian feels untouchable: by her past, by her future, by time at all. 

Somewhere, not here, but somewhere, it ticks over to the new year. Fireworks go up, and Lian doesn’t even need to hold herself back from flinching.

**Author's Note:**

> translations:  
> Damian không phải là kẻ thù = Damian is not the enemy  
> Tôi không sợ Damian. Không ai ở đây là kẻ thù. = I'm not afraid of Damian. Nobody here is an enemy.  
> để lộ cổ của mình để có thể tấn công = leaving her neck open to possible attack


End file.
